Page 87 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade7_Flipbook

Writing Workshop 7 (continued)
My Notes
SAMPLE TEXT
Let’s Go to the
by Dan Gutman VIDEOTAPE
I wasn’t the skinniest boy in Newark, New Jersey.
Okay, well maybe I was the skinniest boy in Newark, New Jersey.
I have no proof either way. But kids at school used to say to me, “You’re so skinny that when you go to the movies, you can’t hold the seat down.” Kids used to say, “Did you hear that Gutman disappeared? Yeah, he turned sideways.”
Very funny.
Nowadays of course, everybody knows that it’s good to be skinny, for health reasons. And now that I’m pushing fifty, I’m kind of glad that I’ve always been thin.
But back in 1965, I was ashamed and humiliated that I could just about put my hand around my own ribs. My legs were like matchsticks. Clothes never fit me right. The waistband of my pants, for some reason, seemed to naturally fall just below my armpits. I wouldn’t wear a watch because even the smallest wristband would slide up and down my arm. I was short, too.
I was a mutant freak!
I tried to gain weight, I really did. I heard that drinking milk shakes and eating bananas would make you bulk up. So I tried it. I didn’t gain a pound. What can I say? I never had a big appetite. To this day, I eat a couple of bites of food and feel full.
Finally, in fourth or fifth grade, I decided to do something about it. I decided to try weights.
Not lifting them, mind you. That would have been too much work. I’m talking about putting weights in my shoes.
You see, my father had a printing business that he ran out of our basement. He had all these thin pieces of lead that he used to separate the lines of type.
One day each year at school, each class would be marched down to the nurse’s office for the annual ritual of being weighed, measured, and (in my case) humiliated. It was no fun being the skinniest and shortest boy in the class.
So I hit on a great idea: I would borrow some of my dad’s lead weights and slip them in my shoes to make myself heavier and taller. Nobody would know the difference.
No, they didn’t. The lead added maybe one pound to my weight and a half an inch to my height. The kids still laughed at me. And it was hard to walk with all that lead in my shoes.
The worst part of school for me, naturally, was gym class. I was never good at sports. I didn’t have the arm strength to climb the ropes in gym. I didn’t have the endurance to run the mile. Baseball was always my favorite sport, but I couldn’t hit the ball. I was always afraid the ball was going to hit me. (It never did, but once I ran into a tree while chasing a Frisbee.)
The gym teacher at Mt. Vernon School was Mr. Feely (yes, that was his real name). He made us play basketball a lot. When things got rough, I was always the one on the floor, getting trampled by the other players.
2 SpringBoard® Writing Workshop with Grammar Activities Grade 7
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